Poor are the worst hit

There's no doubt on poor being the worst affected in every way during any natural disaster. With corona crisis and eventually floods, locust attacks and many other disasters coming in the way, the financially well-off sections will survive but the below poverty line sections of the society and moreover the roadside beggars have nothing to help them survive!

People from different States are moving back to Assam on foot because they had no way to reach the government to bring them in a mobile process. They are walking miles with empty stomach and thirst. They don't know how they will survive here, with no certainty of work and wages.

Many have the misconceptions of poor being dirty and name them as carriers of the pandemic which is really ungrateful because the poor, the labourers, and various kinds of subalterns usually don't carry pandemics. Those who are economically better and acquire the capacity to be mobile, the affluent or those who aspire to become richer, frequent flyers, foreign-attracted socialites, a few bureaucrats and the so-called global public appear as the first carrier of epidemics.

The poor have been the ones abiding by the nature and yet being affected worse by the natural disasters. The rich are exploiting the nature and the punishment is being laid on to the poor section. This cycle has been continuing from time immemorial. The economy is to face a massive holocaust in the coming years and yet again the poor will be the first in line to be affected severely. Hope, the people who are helping these people to get their needful through reliefs continue taking these moral initiatives along with all others who too want to join in. A little help can be something big for someone.

Rajashree Das,

Gauhati University